Imersão social e institucional e capacidades competitivas: uma anáise do setor calçadista de Nova Serrana

Abstract

Social embeddedness and institutional embeddedness approaches have been extensively used to analyze firms business relationships. The Social embeddedness approach, in its relational perspective, considers the direct effects of interaction among players upon economic actions. This in turn means that economic trade is not established solely on market-based attributes, but also traders commitment and trust among themselves. The institutional embeddedness approach suggests that the participation of firms in sectorial associations may influence the behavior and results of the participating firms. The main point of this work is to investigate the influence of business relationship within the shoe industry on acquiring competitive capabilities based on those two mentioned approaches. Thus, we proposed and analysis of the nature of the business relationship of firms towards both clients and suppliers and the firms relationship with the sectorial association and players belonging to other sectors of the industry. A survey research was applied to collect data from 78 firms which were registered at the shoe industry association along with interviews made with 14 owners of some of those firms. A multivariate factorial analysis was applied to the data along with tests required to decide on the validation of the model of research used. A structural equation modeling procedure was used to evaluate the influence of the relationship and their impact on the level of capabilities acquired by the researched firms. Qualitative data was also collected through semi-structured interviews which used the questionnaire derived from the research model. The results of the research suggest that business relationship with suppliers is as relevant to acquire competitive capabilities as is the degree of efficiency with which trade relationship are managed. The adequate efficiency level might even minimize the occurrence of opportunistic behavior. However, the relationship with clients and other players did not seem to be related to the acquisition of capabilities. The results indicate further that firms participation in sectorial associations enable the acquisition of capabilities which would not otherwise be available in the market. Besides, the fact that firms participate in associations influences the degree of embeddedness that they assume with their clients and suppliers. The main conclusion of this work is related to the importance of firms analyzing their relationship with their players of both economic and non-economic realms so that the firms may identify, on one hand, those which are more relevant in order to acquire capabilities and, on the other hand, those in which trust and collaboration are relevant to improve business trade